Advances in medical research have revealed that one may constantly come into contact with various germs, such as bacteria, viruses and other types of harmful microorganisms through their everyday activities. In addition, these various germs may then be spread to other people that one has contact with, or simply people who contact various surfaces that other people have previously infected with germs.
While most bacteria are harmless, many disease-causing bacteria produce toxins that damage cells and cause illness. Viruses invade cells in the body, affecting the workings of the cell. Neither these, nor other microorganisms, are generally desirable to most people on their skin or their surrounding environment. Further, unlike most healthy people that generally harbor some microorganisms within their system, individuals having auto-immune deficiencies cannot tolerate this and are especially susceptible to even trace amounts of microorganisms.
In an effort to combat these germs and avoid spreading them, many people use sanitizing, antibacterial gels or wipes to clean their hands and other body parts that may have come into contact with germs, and also to clean surfaces that may contain germs. However, one area that tends to get overlooked in the battle against germs is the bottom of our feet, or, more specifically, the soles of our shoes.
Floors, sidewalks, open ground, and the like, are breeding grounds for a large variety of germs. People are constantly dropping or spilling items onto the floor, and as people walk through any type of germ-infected area, the germs are rapidly spread by the soles of everyone's feet. While many people manage to avoid contact with surfaces intended for your hands—such as handrails or doors—no one who is able to walk can avoid contacting the ground with their shoes. Thus, the bottoms of our shoes and/or feet can become infected with an enormous variety of germs contacted throughout the day. Then, when one comes home after a day of walking around the office, a hospital, a subway, or any public area, all of those potential germs are brought back to the home.
Regular door mats do little to solve the problem of germs coming into the household on the soles of shoes. These door mats generally include a rough material on their surface to brush the dirt off. However, many of the bacteria or other microorganisms remain alive on the soles and are brought into the household.
Numerous approaches have been taken to the use of cleaning devices for shoes at the entry to homes, businesses or specific areas of a building that are required to remain free of germs and debris. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,300,275, issued to Lorman, proposes a floor tray with a grate, which can be depressed and cause a washing solution to saturate the sole and lower part of the shoe. U.S. Pat. No. 5,164,164, issued to Strickler et al. and U.S. Published Patent Application 2009/0098031 similarly propose reservoirs of cleaning solution that are activated by stepping onto a tray. Another approach, found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,881,427, issued to Offner, is a floor mat or grate placed over a tray having disinfectant, wherein the grate is overlain with a fabric that may absorb the disinfectant and allow the user to clean his shoes by stepping on the dampened fabric. Another potential solution utilizes a foot tray with an upstanding wick saturated with a cleaning solution along with an absorbent mat for the wearer to use in drying off each shoe. Still another approach utilizes a separate scraper along with a separate cleansing solution to be used in successive steps in cleaning each shoe.
Most of these proposed methods are insufficient, in part because the cleaning device becomes infected with the germs of each user, and there is either no means to remove the germs, or the means for removing the germs is not convenient enough to be operated after every user. Thus, some of the germs from each user remain behind, and could actually infect the shoes of the next user, rather than removing the second user's germs. Another drawback with these prior devices is that the germicide solution remains on the soles of the shoes, and could cause a safety issue with potential slipping.
Thus, there is a need for a device for sanitizing soles of shoes and/or feet that provides a renewable surface to prevent contact with the germs of prior users, and also may provide a sanitized means for drying the soles of the clean shoes to eliminate potential slipping.